


walking uphill in snowstorms is not for the faint of heart

by jesseofthenorth



Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cussing, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake Jensen is not a big fan of snow. Or getting shot at. Or patching up team-mates. Or most of the other shit he has to put up with today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	walking uphill in snowstorms is not for the faint of heart

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an attempt to fill 'miles from anywhere' square on my angst bingo card. Written in a mad rush during mini-nano.

“Don't you fucking die on me you fucker!” Jake snapped out, hands moving fast through blood and torn flesh, wrapping a QuikClot gauze around the mess and covering it with a field dressing. "Cougar you asshole! Don't fucking leave me here with Roque. I'll wind up gutting that prick and it'll be your fault! Cougar!"

His hands shook and he could feel some useless destructive thing trying to get loose in his chest. Jake pushed it away hard and pulled the bandage tight. It only took a couple more minutes. He had to be fast, they needed to get moving. All the QuikClot on the planet wouldn't do any good if they got captured by an _extremely_ hostile enemy.

Jake shouldered one pack on each side, grabbed Cougar's rifle, and pulled the man himself up into a fireman's carry. It was going to be a brutal load but he didn't want to leave the first aid gear in Cougar's pack behind, anymore than he wanted to leave the communications gear in his.

Jake didn't look back when he started to run, arms locked tight around Cougar's legs trying to keep him from bouncing around.

The sound of gunfire and then returning fire hopefully meant crooked local cops had were going head to head with the drug dealers behind Jake and Cougar. He wasn't going to slow down long enough to find out. Let them all kill each other, God could sort it out. Jake had a place they could hide until help showed up, if he could get them there. He hoped those fuckers behind them killed each other off.

Jake ran until his legs started to burn and there was no sound of pursuit, for that Jake was glad but it didn't make him slow down. 

He ran, as flat out fast as he could, until he hit the river. It wasn't wide or very fast but the banks were steep and it was all he could do to keep his feet under him as he half slid down to the water. Instead of running straight through and up the opposite bank Jake turned upstream and ran as fast as he could in the frozen shin deep water. It made sense to him to head upstream, it was harder going and most people wouldn't do it when being pursued, it was easier to run downstream, get away faster. He hoped that would be the first thought of anyone in pursuit.

The water was fucking cold. His boots were standard issue and therefore not exactly waterproof. Didn't matter. He could run a long way with cold wet feet. And run he did. It was close to dusk before he turned toward a grassy bank and stepped onto the shore turning to the dense woods. He was pretty good with calculating distance and speed, so he mostly knew where they were. Jake was also excellent at remembering the layout of a map.He knew they were still moving toward safety even if it was almost unattainably far away.

There was a shelter on that map and it was toward this that Jake was moving. Clay would be able to find them there (hopefully), all he had to was keep going. If trying to run uphill carrying his stupid sniper and all their shit didn't make his heart explode or some shit.

Jake put one foot in front of the other as fast as he could.

Finally they hit the top of the ridge and it was there just like Jake expected it to be. He almost missed the cabin, in the near dark, his fatigue making him stupid. But. There it was. Small and rough and barely a shelter but it was as close to salvation as they were getting tonight.

Jake pushed the door open with his foot and carefully angled through, making sure not to knock Cougar's head against the jamb. The last thing his favorite sniper needed on top of a hole in his leg was a concussion, the stupid asshole.

The door swung gently shut behind them. Jake saw a window and a bunk, and an old metal wood stove and thank-you-jesus a pile of split dry wood at the ready. 

He hoped they were far enough out of reach that the smoke from the fire wouldn't give them away. It was cold as shit and he was almost running on empty, it would be hard to stay warm without one. Maybe even impossible in light of the weather he thought he saw moving in. It felt like snow to him. The sky had that flat grey monotone and the air was still. It felt like a storm. One more thing to fuck with their chances for survival.

Jake put Cougar down as gently as he could, dropped the packs, propped the rifle and tried to stretch the cramps out of his over taxed shoulders. It was getting cold too fast fire had to take priority over anything else. If he got much colder Jensen wasn't going to be able to do any of the things that needed doing to keep them both alive. He went to see if he could get a fire going.

 

His hands were cold and stiff and there was no paper but he shaved thin pieces off with the big ass knife he'd won (stolen) from Roque and soon there were enough small pieces to take a flame. His hands were shaking hard by the time he managed to roll the wheel on his Zippo but the flame caught. Jake slowly added fuel, one careful piece at a time, larger and larger pieces of wood until the fire was crackling and snapping and throwing a feeble heat. He took only a brief few moments to rub his hands together in front of that fire. Working some of the stiffness before he turned to Cougar.

He was still slumped on the bunk just starting to stir. Jake unbuckled Cougar's pack and started digging out supplies. Cougar groaned.

“Hey Cougs' take it easy man. Gonna get you fixed right up. Gonna get warm in here too. Made a fire. Maybe I'll even throw on some cocoa.” he kept talking as he worked. Cutting the fabric away from the wound looking at the mess there.

“Cold.” Cougar mumbled.

“Okay man. I'm working on that, gotta get your leg cleaned up.” Jake told him. Jake dug out a small sealed pouch and pulled a sheet of something shiny out unfurling it and wrapping the Mylar blanket around Cougars shoulders and torso. It didn't look like much but they warmed you up fast and it wouldnt matter if it got a little blood on it. Cougar gripped the plastic close and looked at him groggily. Jake nodded and got back to work on the leg. It was a fucking mess.

The trip here had rendered the field dressing and the gauze under it mostly useless, it was all but falling off. He could see the wound underneath and it was sluggishly bleeding. More concerning was the debris in the wound. Jake picked out as much as he could, trying to ignore Cougars bitten off hisses. Jake said nothing just kept doing what he had to. He thought for a second about flushing the wound, but all he had was betadine and that would hurt like a bitch and do little good. He really needed to flush it with some water and throw some stitches at it.

"Cougs?"

"Wha-"

"This is a fucking mess man. I think I need to flush it and stitch it. You up for that?"

"Mm." 

It was as close to consent as he was going to get, so Jensen got to work. He used most of a canteen of water flushing the chunks of shit out of the wound and it was barely enough, even mixed 1:1 with the betadine. The wound still looked like hell even clean. Thank god for the suture kit at the bottom of Cougars pack.

The litany of steps and warnings running on a constant loop through his head as he prepared to stitch: "Pull the edges together but not too tight. Approximation is the goal." By the time he was done flushing the wound he sweating and exhausted. Stitches were going to be a fucking bitch. There was a reason why this was Cougar's thing and not Jake's. But he was a godamned professional badass and he could deal with this shit even it made feel like puking. Still, the cabin was starting to warm a bit so there was that.

"How you doing Cougs?"

"Super" he mumbled, huddled under the Mylar. It was good news; if Cougar could bitch he was probably going to be okay.

As he moved on to the next step he thought 'Thank god for the lidocaine.' Jake didn't know how he could get through pushing a needle through Cougar's skin again and again, if his friend had been able to feel every bit of it. 

Jake gritted his teeth and got to work. The only way to get through it, for Jake, was to detach from what he was doing and let his hands move on auto pilot. He kept up a constant stream of chatter, mostly bitching about slogging through the snow carrying lazy fucking snipers and how fucked up command had to be for sending them here in the middle of winter in the first fucking place and didn't they get that he was not a man who loved the snow, and why didn't they ever get sent on an Op somewhere awesome like the Riviera? Most of it made minimal sense to anyone but Jake but no one else was listening anyway and the words served their primary purpose, to give Jake's mind somewhere to go besides the disgusting mess small arms fire had made of Cougar's leg.

He was just tying off a clean pressure bandage when Cougar groaned and muttered "Cold." 

Jake couldn't give in to any of the fear he was feeling and Cougar needed reassurance. Jake gave it to him the only way he knew how: play it off and keep going.

"Hang tight, ya big baby. It's just a flesh wound, but i'll try to wrangle you up a hot drink anyway."

Cougar closed his eyes and nodded wearily. 

Jake's canteen was low but Cougar's was mostly full so they were kind of okay. Not terrific but not in desperate shape either. Jensen poured some in his canteen cup and set it on the little stove to heat. He took the other cup partly filled with water back to Cougar.

 

Cougar was still out of it mostly but Jake got him half sitting and then bullied him into swallowing some water. He had no idea how long they were going to be stuck here and Cougs had lost enough blood that shock was a possibility and overall weakness was to be expected. He needed to stay hydrated and it was now Jensen's job to make that happen. SO. Brute force and bullying would be employed if necessary. he needed fuel to but Jake couldn't get to take more than a single bite no matter how much he bitched. It would have to do for now.

Jake covered him up with the space blanket and turned back to the other things that needed doing. The fire was okay for the time being, he'd maybe have to hunt up some more fuel later... depending. Which brought him around to the fact that it was time to try and reach out to the colonel.

Their field phone was great within a defined set of parameters and distances. Jensen just hoped they hadn't exceeded them. Time to find out. He could probably carry Cougar out of here if he needed to but it would be far from ideal.

“Papa actual this is Papa second, copy?” Jake waited for the crackle and hiss coming out of the unit to firm up in to something else. It didn't take long.

“Papa Actual. Where the fuck are you. What the hell went wrong and tell me you have my sniper with you!”

Okay so maybe Clay sounded a little pissed. 

“Not my fault Colonel. Grabbed Cougs and got the hell outta dodge. Need you to come get us. At the secondary fall back. Priority.”

Jensen could almost hear the wheels turning, because they hadn't really formalised this. Jensen was hoping the colonel had been paying attention when Jensen had pointed out the cabin on their map and mentioned it would be a workable alternative fallback if the shit hit the fan.

“Roger that Papa Two. Moving out ASAP.”

“Copy that colonel.”

 

Jake left it at that, his people knew where they were and that they needed help. Now all he had to do was keep them both alive until help arrived. He went outside to see if there was more wood, and maybe hunt down some water. 

 

There _was_ wood and a little trickle of a creek behind the cabin. He brought in enough wood for the night but sealed his miserable fate by tripping and landing ass first in the creek when he was scooping some out with his too small canteen and cup. All he wanted was enough water to drink and try for a cup of hot cocoa to feed Cougs later. Instead he got soaked to the fucking skin in the freezing cold, dark, ass-end of no where.

Jake had had enough. He grumbled his way back to the little shack, pulled of his boots, stowed them behind the stove, stripped off his wet pants, draped them in front of the fire over a very rickety wooden chair. He made cocoa in huddled in his damp underwear in front of the stove and tried not to shiver so hard he fell over. When the cocoa was mixed he climbed in under the mylar with Cougar. 

He fed Cougar as much of the hot drink as he could and tried not to shiver too hard. Jake finally tucked in behind Cougar pulling the blanket tight across his own partially frozen ass. He faced the door, sidearm in his hand resting on Cougar's hip, pointed directly at the door. Just in case. 

The first person to remark on the sleeping arrangements was going to get punched in the face. Unless it was a bad guy who showed up, then Jake was gonna just shoot him. Also in the face.

 

He got up again when the fire was low. The shack was more air leak than solid wall so it got cold fast. His pants were mostly dry, except for the denser material at the waist so he called it good and pulled them back on. Enough of this semi-bare-assed naked bullshit. A man felt a lot more secure wearing pants.

Any soldier worth his salt ( and didn't want to get chewed up and spit out by Col. Clay) carried spare socks. Jensen pulled his out of the over flap on his LC2. They were dry as a bone in their own zipper bag. His boots were still steaming though so Jake moved them around the front, more handy that way but still able to dry.He filled the stove full of wood and sat on the crappy old chair keeping his feet warm while he waited for his boots to dry and the rest of the team to show up. 

He was almost nodding off when he heard the rumble of an engine. Almost. He got to his feet slipped on his damp boots and peaked out the dirty window, pistol in hand. His relief was a palpable weight when he saw the colonel step out of their ride. Jake didn't give in to exhaustion that was close. Not time for that until Cougar was safer.

 

He sat in the back of their ride, huddled up with a semi conscious Cougar, under a disposable sleeping bag. His boots were up front drying under a vent. He was wearing Pooch's spares, too big but serviceable. Jake didn't really care. He was getting warm again. Cougar was safe and mostly alive and his team was here. Everything else would work itself the fuck out.


End file.
